Crude oil futures have fallen to their lowest level this year due to concerns about weak global demand, including from the largest oil importing country, while OPEC+may increase production in October. On September 4th, the November Brent crude oil price fell by $4.91 per barrel, closing at $73.75 per barrel, hitting a low of $72.63 per barrel this year, while WTI oil prices also hit a low of $69.19 per barrel this year.

StoneX analyst Fawad Razaqzada said, "Recent data shows no signs of accelerating import demand from major Asian countries, Europe, or North America, indicating that the oil market is not as tight as expected a few months ago

On Tuesday, anonymous OPEC+sources stated that OPEC+has reached an agreement to postpone the relaxation of production cuts originally scheduled to begin in October. The organization now plans to relax production cuts starting from December.

Despite the surge in oil prices on Thursday after the release of crude oil inventory data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) and OPEC+news, crude oil prices quickly gave up their gains, with WTI crude falling to $69.30 per barrel and Brent crude falling to $72.70 per barrel.

According to Dow Jones, analysts at Ritterbusch said, "We believe OPEC+is in an exceptionally difficult situation because their determination to support oil prices is being challenged by non OPEC oil producing countries' continued loss of market share for a long period of time." "This means that revenue will decrease as oil prices fall, which will exacerbate concerns about budget demands from OPEC's major oil producing countries

At the same time, commodity analysts at Standard Chartered Bank revealed that the oil market has been dominated by trend following strategies recently, and some views on the macroeconomic outlook and geopolitical developments in the United States are not stable. According to analysts, the recent decline has been amplified by the trend tracking algorithm CTA's strategy. Standard Chartered stated that this group of traders have even shorted oil beyond the levels at the bottom of the previous two cycles, leaving some room for short positions to cover the upward trend. But experts also warn that CTA's strategy is currently so negative for oil that any significant increase could lead CTA traders to short again.

The rebound in Libyan oil production also does not contribute to oil prices, and there are reports that progress is being made on a dispute resolution agreement. A few days ago, Sadiq al Kabir, former governor of the Libyan central bank, stated that an agreement is about to be reached between the authorities in Tripoli and Benghazi, and he expects to return to control the central bank soon. It was his dismissal that triggered the current crisis. At present, the stalemate between the warring parties has reduced the market by about 700000 barrels per day of Libyan crude oil. But Standard Chartered Bank is more optimistic about the situation in Libya and says that the reality of the current negotiations is much more subtle as suggested by Al Kabir. Standard Chartered Bank pointed out that so far, apart from hoping to reach an agreement to allow oil revenue to flow between the two regional economies again, the two sides have not reached any substantive agreement.

Standard Chartered Bank stated that there have been no significant changes in the fundamentals of the oil market for the fourth quarter of 2024 over the past six weeks. Analysts predict that assuming OPEC+voluntarily reduces production and relaxes according to current plans, inventory for this quarter will decrease by 500000 barrels per day. Similarly, the EIA model predicts a decrease in inventory of 500000 barrels per day, while the International Energy Agency (IEA) model predicts a decrease in inventory of 500000 to 700000 barrels per day. Although the decline in these predictions is not significant, they represent a significant year-on-year improvement compared to the incremental growth recorded in the fourth quarter of 2023. The relative improvement of the Standard Chartered model is 1.4 million barrels per day, while the EIA model is 1.3 million barrels per day.